Adult Education at Biological Field Stations: Building Capacity for Science Learning

An understanding of science concepts is important for living in modern society. Supporting adults’ science learning can be particularly challenging because most adults no longer attend formal educational institutions where access and opportunities are facilitated by teachers and school-sponsored programs. Biological field stations (BFSs) are a newly recognized educational venue that hold considerable intrinsic value for adult science education. In this study, we conducted a survey of 223 U.S. BFSs about their nonformal and informal educational outreach programs for adults. Results show BFSs offer a wide variety of science learning programs for adults, focused heavily on experiential learning to engage learners. These experiences promote interactions with the natural environment and are perceived to increase participants’ knowledge and skills. This study has implications for how adult educators can better support the professional development of science educators at BFSs and enrich the general public's science learning.

Smell, Taste and Covid-19: Testing is Essential

During the Covid-19 pandemic is became clear that smell and taste (chemosensory) disturbance is very common in the early stages of disease. This article addresses: 1) why Covid-19 specifically targets the modalities of smell and possibly taste and what is the mechanism 2) what is the frequency of smell and taste loss and, 3) what is the overall prognosis. It is suggested that mouth breathers may be at particular risk of Covid-19. Symptom-based questionnaires are likely to under-estimate the prevalence of chemosensory impairment by as much as 50%. The prevalence of smell loss is so high that a person who has normal olfaction on formal testing is unlikely to be infected significantly with Cov-2. Furthermore, someone without symptoms who has an abnormal smell test could still be infected and liable to spread the disease. Brief, low cost, olfactory tests are available that would permit a high throughput in field stations and airports. A normal result might obviate the need for a nasopharyngeal swab for the Cov-2 virus

Nature beyond Solitude

The field notes taken for this book are not only about nature, but from nature as well. The book lets the reader peer over the author'shoulder as he takes his notes. The reader follows him to a series of field stations where he teams up with scientists, citizen scientists, rangers, stewards, and graduate students engaged in long-term ecological study, all the while scribbling down what he sees, hears, and feels in the moment. The field stations are located at Hastings Natural History Reservation, studying acorn woodpeckers; Santa Cruz Island Reserve, studying island foxes; Golden Gate Raptor Observatory, hawkwatching; H. J. Andrews Experimental Forest, recording a forest log for two weeks through the Spring Creek Project; and North Cascades Environmental Learning Center, which was built as mitigation for the environmental harm caused by the hydroelectric dam. The book explores how communal experiences of nature might ultimately provide greater depths of appreciation for the natural world.

ЕARTHQUAKE NEAR CRILLON CAPE on NOVEMBER 25th, 2013 with Mw=5.2, I0=6–7 (Sakhalin Island)

On November 25, 2013, at 03:23 UTC, an earthquake with a magnitude of МwGCMT=5.2 was recorded in the Laperuz Strait water area. This earthquake was the strongest in the south of Sakhalin Island in 2013. Parameters of the earthquake have been determined by data of seismic stations of the regional network of GS RAS Sa-khalin branch, seismic stations of global network IRIS (GSN) and Hokkaido University. Earthquake parameters on data of regional network are in accordance with data of the international seismological centers. The intensity of concussions in some areas of Sakhalin was 4–5 points on a scale of MSK-64 and 3 points on the JMA scale on the island of Hokkaido. The focus shift has happened under conditions of close horizontal compression, seismodislocation type – uplift. The earthquake of 2013 has arisen in the place of regional tec-tonic structures contact – breaks of West Sakhalin and Central Sakhalin. The seismic model was described by data of local network of field stations. Results of observations of an earthquake on November 25, 2013 are written in this article.